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OPINEWS

Why don't I want to spend a single day in Vlora?!

Politiko 2025-06-03 18:26:21

Why don't I want to spend a single day in Vlora?!

By Irena Beqiraj

Adam Smith, in his famous first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), spoke of sympathy, distinguishing it from pity. For him, sympathy meant the ability to change places with another. Whenever we can imagine how we would feel in someone else's place, we empathize.

Using the concept of empathy, Smith introduced us to the concept of the impartial spectator who guides our decision-making. Combining empathy with our concern for how others judge us, our internal impartial spectator pushes us to do what we think is right. From there, according to Smith, the moral judgment of a community is created and there, according to him, are the roots of its culture.

In the absence of traffic lights or paid parking in Vlora, it is up to the people to decide how they will treat someone else. At an intersection, it is the people who decide who will cross first. Seeing a pedestrian, it is again up to the people to decide whether to let them cross the road or not.

Surprisingly, no one ever opens the way in Vlora, everyone is always in a hurry. In Vlora, there are mostly exemplary "citizens" who were born without Smith's "internal and impartial spectator", that is, without the mechanism of understanding, a lack of which, combined with the lack of traffic lights and paid parking, turns staying in Vlora into torture.

 I'm sorry to write these lines about my hometown, but it's the only city in Albania where I suffer every time I step foot in it (although it only brings me trouble)!

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